The present invention relates generally to a switching to redundancy control method and system for providing fast switching from a malfunctioning working component to a redundant component with minimum data flow interruption for both transmitted and received data.
Telecommunication service providers today face an ever increasing amount competition. Competitive local exchange carriers and traditional long distance carriers are entering the local telecommunications services market, while the Regional Bell Operating Companies are attempting to enter the long distance telecommunications services market. This dramatic increase in competition makes it imperative that the quality of service provided by a telecommunication service provider be extremely high. If telecommunications customers find their service interrupted, it is very easy for them to switch to another service provider.
Although the quality of manufacture of telecommunications equipment is increasing, along with better manufacturing techniques and materials technologies, failures still to do occur on components within telecommunications systems. Because of the increased competition in the service provider market, it is very important that the service interruptions caused by failures are minimized in terms of data loss or delay. Providing redundancy within telecommunications equipment is one way to address these concerns.
Redundancy within telecommunications equipment has been provided in the past. However, typically, the redundancy control systems; are complex and/or are not quick enough to switch between a working component with a failure and a redundant component for today""s heavy data traffic loads and high data rates.
Thus, a need has arisen for a non-complex, yet quick, switching redundancy control method and apparatus.
The present invention provides an apparatus and method for switching redundancy control which provides fast switching from a malfunctioning component to a redundant component with minimum data flow interruption for both transmitted and received data. The invention does so by providing an APS (Automatic Switching Protection) Hub, at least a working and a redundant tributary card, a bridge to provide identical traffic to the working and redundant tributary cards, a working and a redundant STM switching fabric, selectors within the working and redundant STM switching fabrics for selecting the traffic from the working tributary card to further process, a working and a redundant ATM switching fabric, a working and a redundant ATM processor and ATM selectors for selecting traffic needing cell switching from the working STM switching fabric to process further. Other data switching fabrics and processors, such as frame relay, could also be used instead of, or in addition to, ATM. The system is capable of monitoring itself to detect failures and the APS Hub is outfitted so as to become aware of detected failures and initiate a switch in the appropriate selectors or ATM selectors go as to change the traffic being further processed from the failed working component to the redundant component.
Thus, it is an object of the present invention to provide a non-complex system and method for fast switching between working and redundant components in a telecommunications network element when a fault occurs on the working component.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide for the fast switching between a working and redundant tributary card when the working card is experiencing faults so as to minimize traffic loss.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide for the fast switching between a working and redundant STS switching fabric when the working fabric is experiencing faults so as to minimize traffic loss.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide for the fast switching between a working and redundant VT switching fabric when the working fabric is experiencing faults so as to minimize traffic loss.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide for the fast switching between a working and redundant ATM processor card when the working card is experiencing faults so as to minimize traffic loss.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide for the fast switching between a working and redundant ATM switching fabric when the working fabric is experiencing faults so as to minimize traffic loss.